Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Rafael Cruz’ BS American History

As Right Wing Watch points out, Rafael Cruz is now just repeating David Barton’s bullshit about the founding fathers, Christianity and the Constitution. He says that the Declaration of Independence is little more than a collection of sermons (what?) and that over half of the signers of the Declaration were “seminary graduates” and “theologians.” That is a ridiculous lie. They graduated from universities that were founded as seminaries, but that does not make them “seminary graduates,” much less “theologians.” In fact, as Chris Rodda pointed out, only four of them went to college for seminary studies and only two of them finished it.

Comments

Mr. Cruz is behind the times. Here he’s relying on one of the very first lies David Barton propagated at the start of his first book, Original Intent; a lie that was falsified years ago. This is analogous to promoting the 1970s idea that Henry Kissinger is the anti-Christ rather than Barack Obama. Or promoting Hal Lindsay’s Late Great Planet Earth Armageddon fantasies from the 1970s rather than promoting Mr. Lindsay’s current act.

Cruz reminds me of the evangelicals and fundies that get the books passed around, but isn’t keeping up so well with the latest and greatest conservative viral emails. You also rarely see the end of these types of books spread around, just the nasty bits up front. If a book exists defending one’s belief, that alone is proof one’s beliefs are true; so why bother reading the whole bit? Better to pass it along to an unbeliever so they can get up to speed on what is “true”.

You Liberals go on and on about “fairness”, and that’s not fair. You can’t judge a politician by his parents, and it’s unfair to bring their family members in to the limelight as though smearing them with the foolish and idiotic beliefs of their relatives means anything, especially when the politician puts that family member out front to push the dogwhistles he can’t get away with saying. It’s not like he’s Barack Hussein Obama’s father, who the “president” wrote a whole book about how much he’d effected him. Or the Clinton’s anybody. Or Carter’s brother.

You see that among creationists as well. Donald Prothero wrote a description about how Duane Gish continued to use slides that were 30 years out of date as “proof” that evolution was false until the day he died. Even during a debate in which his opponent came prepared with counter examples to Gish’s claims, Gish would simply continue on to his next point as if nothing new had been presented.

On Planet Wingnuttia, lies are never debunked. They just get recycled.

raven“Leaving a paper trail of his defective personality behind him. He comes across as an unlikeable, power mad sociopath.”
Sure, it’d hurt him in a presidential race, if he both chose to run in the Primary and didn’t burn out there (either against the general, miscellaneous insanity of that clown car or, more likely when being held temporarily in the spotlight as “the favorite”), but it won’t hurt him if he chooses to stay in the Legislative. Since he got elected in the first place, simple demographics show his district is probably at least 50%+1 pro-“unlikeable, power mad sociopath”. It’s practically a litmus test now.

Yeah, I’ve been noticing that sort of thing for a while in woodom. Elsewhere, I recently wrote a comment about quacks doing something similar by railing against yesterday’s straw men and discredited practices. They’re big into using “epigenetics” as a buzzword to claim you can magically alter your DNA for happiness and health because they’re railing against the old, discredited straw man of genetic determinism, oblivious to science’s acknowledgement of environmental and developmental factors on your life. They pretend that cancer is still a big boogeyman the eggheads can’t beat, but their enlightened guru has. They never got the memo that doctors have developed many genuinely effective treatments for certain types of cancer in the last few decades.

I guess that’s to be expected when an ideology becomes insular to defend itself against inquiry and criticism. It becomes dead and unchanging because it feeds on itself, rather than new evidence or new ideas. If it continues long enough, the anachronisms become prominent features to outsiders.

According to Barton’s list simply attending Harvard makes one a “seminary graduate” regardless of one’s actual area of study. Further, he asserts that education proves they wanted to establish a Christian nation. So remind me again where our current president matriculated?

Part of it – repeating the lies – is their inability to learn, yes. But much of it is their nihilistic epistemology. They really don’t believe that reality is determined by, well, reality. Their internal map is a social construct, and it’s the only one that counts. Their membership in good standing in the The Tribe is determined not by how they determine the facts, but which facts they accept and which they reject; more specifically, which alleged conclusions they accept.

Reality claims about history, science, and economics are for them akin to a country’s border. You can argue about it, deny it, and wear down the opponent. When he finally surrenders, you’ve won. As long as you never surrender, you haven’t lost. You can repeat claims in an argument (“Half the founding Fathers were seminary students” or “Geological evidence supports the Flood.”) as many times as you like. If he refutes your claim with “evidence” it’s much like he blocked a punch in a street fight. You can always throw the punch again. Why, look at all the people in the audience who agree with you! You’ve won! Hooray for Jesus and the GOP!

They think calling for evidence is a rhetorical technique.

Doubling down on beliefs when they’ve been clearly refuted is like Mel Gibson standing up one more time after being brutally beaten down by the bad guy. It cements your place in the Tribe.